Echoes of the Frost
by ninepen
Summary: Loki's missing from dinner, and when Frigga goes to check on him she's taken aback by what she finds. It isn't always easy to reassure your child when his life was built around a lie. But Frigga's love is no lie. And neither is Odin's.
1. He didn't sound sick

**_Echoes of the Frost_**

 **Ch. 1: "He didn't sound sick."**

Odin arrived and went to his seat; well-trained servers streamed out of the kitchen bearing trays; musicians began to play; the feast began. It wasn't a formal occasion – feasts were held frequently here in the palace, each with its own mix of guests. Nothing about the evening was out of the ordinary, except…

Frigga excused herself from the conversation at her end of the High Table and made her way to the opposite end, sharing warm smiles and words of greeting with those she passed. She reached twelve-year-old Thor's side – he looked bored, unsurprisingly – and crouched down to put her head at the level of his. She put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention, and leaned in close to whisper, "Where's Loki?"

"He was in bed already. He said he was tired and he didn't want to come down for dinner."

Frigga wrinkled her brow. It wasn't even 8:00 yet. "Is he sick?"

"He didn't _sound_ sick," Thor said with a shrug. "But I didn't really see him. He was buried under the covers."

"All right. I'll go check on him," she said, straightening her legs, then putting a hand down firmly on top of the chair Thor immediately started pushing back.

"I'll go, too," he said, starting to wriggle out of the chair anyway.

"No, you'll stay here, have your dinner, be polite to our guests, and do whatever your father asks of you."

"But-"

"No, Thor."

He sighed and wriggled his way back fully onto his seat, and Frigga stepped around him to Odin's side. "Forgive me, Ranlin, might I steal a second of the All-Father's time?"

"It is not a theft, my queen, it is already yours," the prominent metals trader said, then deliberately turned to his left, where his own wife sat.

She bent over and spoke softly to Odin as she had to Thor. "I'm going to check on Loki. Thor said he's already gone to bed. I'm sure he's fine, but don't worry if I don't return. I just wanted you to know where I was going."

Odin nodded. "Take him something to eat. If he gets any thinner a stiff breeze will knock him over."

Frigga breathed a quiet laugh through her nose and nodded. Loki had recently had another rapid growth spurt and his body hadn't quite adjusted to the extra length yet. "I'll take him a plate." She wrapped her hand over his under the table and he gave it a squeeze.

"Ranlin, you were telling me your plans for expansion into the old…"

Their conversation faded into the background as Frigga stepped away to speak to the nearest servant, and by the time she reached the door that led down a corridor to the palace's private wing, that same servant was rushing back up to her with a tray laden with multiple covered dishes that surely held more food than both her boys could eat together. "I'll take it," Frigga said, and continued on her way.

Thor hadn't specified whose chambers Loki was in – with Thor twelve and Loki eleven, the boys both had their own chambers now, but they frequently still wound up together, most often in Thor's. If Loki had gone to bed so early, though, odds were he was in his own, so she went first past Thor's door to Loki's. Balancing the tray carefully on her arm, she knocked lightly. She waited a moment, then went in, through the front room and into the bedchamber. The lights were out, but enough natural light made it through the window that she could plainly see Loki's outline. His bed was on the right against the wall lengthwise – an odd location, but it replicated the position it had been in when he and Thor still formally shared chambers, and gave him plenty of room for the extra bed he kept on the other side of the room for playing or reading or big brothers who decided to sleep over.

Loki was on his side, face to the wall, a typical position for him. From the sounds of his breathing, he was already asleep.

Frigga set the tray on his dresser and went over to sit on the edge of his bed. "Loki?" she whispered, then reached for his shoulder to give it a gentle rub through the covers. The instant she touched him, he flinched, then shifted and settled again. Frigga looked down at him with concern, her hand hovering over him. She tried again, saying his name, rubbing his shoulder, and this time he drew in a hissed breath as he pulled away, opening his eyes and twisting to look at her.

Frigga gasped at what she saw. His bottom lip was puffy, his cheek was reddened and bore the hint of a bruise. And there had to be something wrong with his shoulder. "Loki, what happened to you?"

"Nothing. I'm just tired," he said, shifting back onto his side.

"Being tired doesn't make one's lip swell," she said, pulling at the covers he had latched onto. His knuckles turned white with the effort, but she easily pulled them down to his waist.

"Mother, stop!" Loki said when she started pulling the loose-fitting tunic down off his shoulder. He reached for the hem and she grabbed his hand in hers to keep it out of the way.

"Loki…," she breathed, staring down at the large bruise in mottled red and purple on her son's beautiful smooth skin. "What happened? Did someone hurt you?" For a split second it crossed her mind that he could have gotten into a fight with Thor, but if Thor had accidentally hurt Loki like this the guilt on his face would have been as obvious as a blast from the Gjallarhorn.

"No. It's nothing. I…I just fell, that's all. It's just bruises. I'll be fine," Loki said, his face earnest – too earnest, and tinged with desperation. It was obvious he was lying.

"It's not just bruises, it's-" She noticed then that his forehead, mostly hidden beneath mussed black hair, was red. She pushed the hair aside and again Loki flinched away from her. In almost exactly the center of his forehead was a swollen red spot, and when she brushed a thumb gently over it, making Loki squeeze his eyes shut, she found it was hard. "Oh, Loki, what were you thinking? Get out of bed, we're going to see Eir," Frigga said, standing and waiting for Loki to get up.

Loki, however, made no move to follow. "I _don't_ need to see Eir, Mother. I'm fine. I'm not a child anymore."

She stepped back over beside the bed and looked down at Loki. "No, you aren't a child anymore, not formally, but you're still _my_ child, and I still know what's best for you. Loki, bruises can hide injuries that are worse than you realize. And this bump on your head, and you going to bed so early? They're cause for concern. _You_ will not decide if you're fine, and _I_ will not decide if you're fine. _Eir_ will decide if you're fine, because that is her role. Now get out of bed and come with me, or if you don't wish to go to the Healing Room, I'll send for Eir to come here. Those are the only two options at the moment. Do you understand?"

Loki blinked a few times, staring up at her with widened eyes. She'd spoken more strictly to him than she normally did, but she was worried. Loki had certainly been injured before, but she'd never known him to _hide_ an injury. "Which is it?" she prompted, her tone softening.

He looked away. "I don't want to go there," he said softly a moment later.

"All right," Frigga answered with a nod. She went back out to the corridor and told Thidrek, the Einherjar on duty there, to send for Eir. Asgard's First Healer was probably enjoying dinner with her family, but she was on call twenty-four hours a day for Asgard's ruling family – in practice, she was only called upon outside her normal working hours for Loki, because of his unique circumstances, to which Eir alone of Asgard's healers was privy.

When she returned, Loki was huddled back on his side again, face pressed into the pillow. She decided not to push him about what had happened now; they would deal with his health first. She leaned over and brushed her lips lightly to the top of his head, then sat down beside him at the head of the bed to wait for Eir.

/

* * *

/

Eir arrived with a simple blue healers' apron on over the bright yellow gown she'd been wearing, a bag of supplies in her hand, and a second bag of supplies around her neck and under one arm. "Your Majesty, Prince Loki, what seems to be the problem?"

Frigga looked up at Eir gratefully. Loki hadn't spoken a word while they waited, though neither had she. "Bruises and some other injuries. His right shoulder. He hasn't told me what happened." She stood up and went to the foot of Loki's bed while Eir moved up to where Frigga had been at the head; Frigga flashed her a worried look while her back was to Loki.

"All right. Let's do a simple visual exam first. I see you've taken quite a knock to the head, Loki. That must hurt," she said, brushing his hair out of the way to get a better look at the swelling there.

Loki kept his eyes averted and didn't respond.

"Let's get your tunic off so I can take a good look at your shoulder."

Loki squeezed his eyes shut, gripped his tunic as he had before, and turned his head further away, pressing it against the pillow.

"Shall I help you, Loki?"

"Eir," Loki began, not moving from his position, "I don't need any exam. It's just some bruises. They'll heal on their own."

"When you have been a healer for over three thousand years, then perhaps I'll let you make such decisions for yourself. Even then, please note, I said 'perhaps.' Now come on, sit up, if your shoulder's hurting I can help you get your tunic off."

Frigga watched, growing oddly uncomfortable as Loki still made no move to do as Eir said. He was normally a largely obedient child, including to Eir, of whom he was very fond, and this was unlike him. He looked upset, or worried, perhaps.

"Loki, is there a reason you don't want to remove your tunic?"

Loki still hesitated, but then gave a frustrated huff of breath and pushed himself up from his left side. When the tunic came off he was bent forward, but when he laid back down again Frigga's mouth fell open. The early stages of several bruises were visible on his narrow torso. One of them was in the distinct shape of a foot.

"Your Majesty," Eir said, turning to Frigga with an expression so smooth Frigga would think she hadn't even noticed the marks if she didn't know better. Her controlled reaction reminded Frigga to control hers as well, and she swiftly closed her mouth and smoothed over her appalled expression. "Would you mind waiting outside while I examine Loki?"

Frigga glanced quickly between Eir and her son, who was staring determinedly over at the wall beside him, and who she could swear was actually trembling. "All right," she said, something beginning to truly gnaw at her. Perhaps Eir thought Loki would for some reason be more willing to tell her what happened than he was his own mother. "All right," she said again, nodding, and went out through the antechamber and into the corridor, where Thidrek stood watch down past Thor's chambers.

She let her eyes drift closed, and the image of a shoeprint on her son's chest filled her vision. A _shoeprint_. Whoever had put a boot to her baby's chest would not have need of boots again once she got hold of him. She saw Loki again, avoiding her eyes, clutching his tunic, unwilling to let her or Eir look at him…looking so ashamed... _Ashamed,_ Frigga thought, the word floating around in her mind ominously. _Ashamed of his injuries? Ashamed…of his body? Eir wanted to examine him alone…she's never asked me to leave her alone with him before…_

Frigga's hand scrambled for the doorframe to grab onto as the floor seemed to open up into a great yawning pit that would swallow her whole. Her other hand went to her mouth. _No._ _No,_ she thought again, and again and again. _No one would_ dare _do that to my child. No one would_ dare. She would tear him limb to limb with her bare hands. She would consult Finnulfur and determine the harshest, cruelest, most painful punishment Asgard had to offer, and she would make sure this fiend endured it over and over for the rest of his life. _A child. A_ child _. He's just a little boy!_

She gripped the doorframe harder and tried to calm herself. Rage so pure and bright that it made her want to torture and kill was of zero benefit to Loki. She didn't know what had actually happened; she didn't know if he'd actually been violated in that way. If he had – moving beyond that thought was not easy, but Frigga made herself do it anyway – if he had, then it was simply another injury, and turning it into something so much more would only make it harder for him to deal with. In one way or another, he'd been hurt badly, and traumatized, and she would give him all her love and all her strength and she would reassure him as long as he needed it and as often as he needed it that he had nothing to be ashamed of and that it wasn't in the slightest his fault, and she would see him through it. He was _alive_ , that was all that mattered. He was alive, and he was hers, and he would be all right. Eir would examine him, determine what had happened, and he would recover.

Her head suddenly swung around. "Thidrek, I wish to speak with you."

Thidrek immediately left his post and came forward, stopping and bowing in front of her.

"You were with Loki today?"

"I was, Your Majesty. Since he left for his lessons this morning."

"And how exactly did you miss him being beaten?" she asked, her tone harsh and angry yet tightly controlled.

Thidrek blinked, started to speak, then tried again. "Beaten, Your Majesty?"

"He's covered in bruises. And not the sort he might have gotten while training."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, my queen, I never-" His expression changed in an instant. "The equipment rooms. He stayed behind on the field after his training for some extra practice, and then he went into the equipment rooms. We don't follow the boys in there; we watch the entrance. When he came out, he looked disheveled and he had a bit of a limp, but…I'm sorry. I assumed it was simply a result of his training."

"Well it wasn't," Frigga snapped back. She stared hard at Thidrek, who was relatively new to her sons' guard, and he dropped his gaze to the floor. Angry that while her son was being beaten and who knew what else, this man whose job it was to protect him had been standing nearby, doing nothing, letting it happen, she was still staring him down when Eir emerged from Loki's chambers.

She turned from Thidrek to Eir. "Is he all right, Eir?"

"He's going to be fine."

"And…was he…?"

"No. I'm confident there was no sexual assault. There was no physical sign of it in the scan, and when I went head to toe with him asking if anything hurt, he gave no reactions of concern in that regard. I couldn't get him to tell me much, only that he was in a fight with three boys."

"Three? But why? Why would these boys attack him?"

"I don't know, Your Majesty. This is all he would say. If you'll come back in, I'll go over his injuries with you, and then I'll leave so you can speak with him. I know I don't need to tell you that he's extremely distraught about something. Something more than this fight."

Frigga nodded, then looked back at Thidrek, still standing there beside them. Beyond him, she saw now, stood Jolgeir as well, against the wall right at the edge of the landing. She realized it must be time for the changing of their shifts. "Back to your posts. I'll discuss this with Hergils later," she said sharply. Hergils was the Chief Palace Einherjar, and ultimately in charge of the boys' guard and all of the Einherjar who served in the palace. They would have to revisit how their protection was handled; nothing like this could ever happen again.

Back inside Loki's bedchamber, everything looked as it did when Frigga first arrived. Loki had turned onto his left side again, facing the wall, and the covers were pulled back up to his chin.

"All right, Loki, I know you've already heard all this, but I'm going to go through it again for your mother now," Eir began, and proceeded to run through his injuries. Nothing was broken, but the bruises were so numerous that she only addressed the larger or more serious ones. The bump on his forehead looked worse than it was; Eir had reduced the swelling but otherwise left it to heal on its own. The bruise on his right shoulder was so bad that it had caused swelling in tissues all the way to the bone, and this one Eir had spent more time on, and applied a partial nerveblock to minimize the pain. His most serious injury, though, was to his left kidney, where he'd received a blow bad enough to injure the organ and cause some minor internal bleeding. Eir had brought with her the device that would heal it, but she still wanted to see Loki in the morning to confirm all was well and to remove the nerveblocks she'd applied to both the right shoulder and the left side.

When Eir finished, Frigga couldn't speak. " _Kidney damage"_ and " _internal bleeding"_ still echoed through her mind. Her boy had gone to bed with _kidney damage_ and _internal bleeding_ and hadn't told anyone he had even a single bruise. It terrified her to imagine what condition he would have woken up in in the morning. Or whether he would have woken up at all.

"Do you have any questions, Your Majesty?" Eir prompted.

Frigga was grateful to be pulled from her fears. Eir had already told her, before they'd gone back into Loki's chambers, that he was going to be _fine._ There was no more kidney damage, and no more internal bleeding. "No. Wait, yes, one. Did you explain to Loki what could have happened had he not received treatment?"

"I did. But…I'm not certain he fully appreciates the gravity of the situation."

Frigga nodded, glancing down at Loki, who hadn't looked up once since she'd come back in. Eir felt he needed to hear it again. Frigga would let him hear it again. And again, and again, until she was certain the message had sunk in. Asgard grew strong boys and girls who became strong men and women. But there was a line, not always recognized by the young – or sometimes even the old – between strong and foolish.

"I've left a tonic on his dresser. It will promote continued healing and give him a little additional pain relief, but you may not want to give it to him just yet. It will make him very sleepy."

"I understand," Frigga said, and Eir gathered her things and left.

Frigga then sat down at Loki's waist so she could easily look him in the eye…at least once she got him to face her. "Loki, turn over and look at me." If anything, he squeezed his eyes – or the one she could see – more tightly shut. "Now, Loki, I mean it."

He rolled over onto his back and his eyes opened, but they still weren't meeting hers. She looked at the bump on his forehead, now only a slightly reddened area, and the lower lip that Eir had also tended to. "Loki Odinson, I can't believe-" Loki had twisted right back onto his side almost as soon as she'd begun to speak. "What has gotten _into_ you?" she asked in exasperation. The lecture on dealing with injuries, she decided, could wait. "Loki, turn over. This isn't going to go away. _I'm_ not going to go away. Not until we've talked about what happened." She waited; he didn't move. "I can go a very long time without sleep if I need to, you know. I'll stay here as long as it takes. You _are_ going to talk to me about this, my precious one. Or if not me, then I can go get your father, and you can talk to him if you prefer."

She hadn't meant it as some sort of threat, only that perhaps whatever had happened was something he would rather speak about with his father than his mother, but Loki seemed to react as though it were a threat, immediately twisting back around and his eyes going straight to hers. "No," he simply said.

"All right, then, I'm listening," she said, keeping her voice as gentle and calm as she could. She would insist he talk to her, but she didn't want him to feel threatened by her, either. "Eir told me that three boys started a fight with you." She deliberately didn't ask any questions. It wasn't an interrogation, and she wanted him to feel free to tell her about it in his own way. Besides, the biggest question on her mind at the moment was "What are their names?", but she knew this was not the first thing that needed to be addressed.

Loki was shaking his head, not the response she expected.

"Is that not correct?"

Loki shook his head again. "I started it," he said, looking off to the side again, a stubborn set to his jaw that was more reminiscent of Thor.

* * *

 _Notes_

 _I know, I know,_ another _story? But this one's actually already complete. Just the usual editing needed for each chapter before release. It's a story in two parts, really, five chapters, with the third kind of a bridge between the other two halves. It's been almost finished for quite a while, and I took a few hours over the last couple of days to finally finish it off. I first recorded this as a story idea on June 23, 2013, and if you're wondering, this story is "canon" for_ Beneath _and_ The Memory Casket _, and my other stories that fall in that same "universe." This family of stories was given life after_ Avengers _, and is meant to be canon-compliant with_ Thor _and_ Avengers _, but not with movies post-_ Avengers _._

 _Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little intro. Please consider sharing your thoughts in that box down below._

 _[For those of you who follow one or more of my other stories and might have wondered where I've been the last few days, yup, another five days without internet. Sigh.]_


	2. You don't understand

_**Echoes of the Frost**_

 **Ch. 2: "You don't understand."**

"What do you mean, darling?" she asked, certain he couldn't literally mean he'd started a physical fight. Loki simply didn't do such things. "Did you say something that made the other boys mad?" It was hard for her to imagine even that. Loki spent far more time with Thor than with any other children, but when he _was_ with others, she'd only ever observed him being kind toward them, even when, in his early childhood, they hadn't always been so kind toward him.

"No," Loki was saying, pulling her from her memories. "I mean I started it. I hit them first. Two of them, anyway."

"Loki…what… _why_? Who were these boys?" She cringed a bit at the last question. It had slipped out. She could not in the slightest picture what Loki said he'd done.

"I don't really know," he said with a shrug, but Frigga didn't quite believe him, not because she could detect any sign of a lie, but simply because it seemed improbable. "They were older than me and Thor."

 _Older?!_ She would have thought this all a bizarre farce were Loki not lying battered before her and clearly unwilling to tell her any of this. "How much older?" she finally managed to ask.

"I don't know. Maybe fourteen."

Loki was eleven. Frigga could not get over the continued shock. Another minute or so passed, after which she placed her hands on either side of his head – both as a gentle reassuring touch and as a firm one that would not let him turn away again – and leaned in closer. "Tell me what happened, Loki."

As she'd suspected, he tried to turn away, but found he couldn't. "Nothing. I was just in a bad mood and they were there in the equipment room and I hit two of them and then they hit me back and they were bigger than me and that's all that happened."

"Try again."

"Motherrrr," he whined.

"Tell me."

Loki's chest began to rise and fall jerkily, and his nose twitched and his eyes squinted. Frigga knew he was about to start crying.

"It's all right, my darling, there's nothing you can say that's so awful. Just tell me."

"They said…"

"Yes? Go ahead, you're almost there."

His cheeks had reddened and now his eyes were fully closed, teardrops gathering in the corners. "They said Father isn't really my father," he whispered.

Frigga stared, eyes widened, lips parted. Loki was distraught, a single teardrop making a path down from his eye to her right hand. She wiped it away and quickly gathered Loki up in her arms, realizing that if he opened his eyes and saw her, he would see fear and be even more distraught. "Of course he's your father, Loki," she said, holding onto him as tightly as she dared, given his lingering bruises. _He_ is _, Loki. You were not born to us, but you may as well have been. Odin is your father, and I am your mother. Nothing will ever change that._

"You don't understand," Loki was saying, his words partly muffled against her chest.

"Then explain it to me. Please, Loki, explain it to me," she said, drawing back from him enough so that she could meet his eyes again, now that the initial burst of fear in her reaction had passed. His eyes, she saw, were now full of tears.

He threw himself back down on the bed and right back onto his side, contorted face pressed right back into the pillow.

Frigga held back a sigh. "A few boys said a mean, stupid thing. Sometimes people do things like that. I know it hurt you, but try not to let it upset you so."

"You _don't_ under _stand_ ," he said again, this time into the pillow.

"I want to, Loki. Tell me the rest of it. Tell me the whole thing, from start to finish."

"They…I can't," he said with a sob.

"Yes, you can," Frigga said, though a new spike of fear had arisen in her. _It isn't possible…no one could possibly know. Three fourteen-year-old boys in the equipment rooms of the youth training fields could not_ possibly _know…could they?_

"But they…they said things about you, too."

 _They could not possibly know._ "What things, Loki? You can tell me. Did they tell you I wasn't your mother?"

He shook his head, a strange motion more like repeatedly pressing his head even harder against the pillow.

"Then what? Loki, look at me, and tell me. Everything will be fine." She reached for his face again, gently turning it from the pillow, toward her.

He let her do it, but he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, and when the words came they were in little gasps of breath fit in around his crying and sniffling. "They said…that Father was…gone…during the war…and so…he…couldn't be…my father." The crying came steadily then.

It took a moment for the implication to sink in. _What a horrible, cruel thing to say to a child._ And what was worse, for her, she realized a second later, was that there was no way to deny it without telling Loki more lies. But they were committed to this one now, she and Odin, and there was no other choice. Technically, she supposed, there was another choice, but that one would wound Loki far more than those boys' words.

"Those boys didn't know what they were talking about," Frigga said. She bent over and gave Loki a quick soft kiss to the forehead, then held out a hand and withdrew a handkerchief from the supply she'd kept on hand through magic since not long after Thor was born, but that she hadn't had as much need for in the last couple of years. "All right, then. Sit up, Loki. Here, like this." He mostly just laid there while she maneuvered him around until she had him seated with his back to the headboard, the pillow pushed to the side. She sat facing him, tucking her legs underneath her plum-colored gown and crossing them. She dabbed at his eyes, then placed the handkerchief in his hands and told him to blow his nose, which he did.

"Now, let's get this sorted out, shall we?" It wouldn't be a lie, what she would tell him, not truly. It was deception all the same, rotting and putrid. But Loki was _hurting_ , and given the choice, she would accept the guilt of the deception over seeing Loki in this kind of pain without hesitation. "Your father wasn't away for the entire length of the war. Didn't you know that?"

Loki glanced up from where he clutched at the handkerchief in his lap. He shook his head.

"We speak of the Ice War as a whole, for the sake of convenience, I suppose, but the stories you hear from Father and Tyr and Bragi and all the others, they aren't from a single, constant battle. There were several battles across Midgard's northern lands. The Jotuns would withdraw, only to attack again. But in between, Odin came home. He needed to consult with the War Council and the Assembly, and he always tried to make a little bit of time for his wife, and later, for his new baby."

"Thor," Loki said, the first hint of a smile pulling at his lips.

"Yes, Thor. Later, when it became clear they weren't going to give up on turning Midgard to ice, he led our Einherjar to Jotunheim itself the next time they withdrew to their own realm, and the fighting there dragged on for another six months, so he was away for a longer stretch."

"Six months?"

"That's right," she said. "And before that he was home more frequently." An Aesir pregnancy lasted for about ten months, and since Thor had been ten months old when Odin brought Loki home to her, they'd had to explain away that improbability – and the lack of physical signs of pregnancy. "Do you see? Your father _was_ here, Loki."

He looked to be thinking it over, taking it very seriously, then he nodded. It wasn't that long ago at all that she'd had _the talk_ with the boys, after Odin had first attempted it. She knew Loki fully understood the issue of the timing, and that Odin had to have been back in Asgard with her for a baby to have been conceived. She desperately hoped he wouldn't press for further details on when exactly Odin had been home, making her dig in even deeper on the deception. For the first time in years she wished she hadn't let Odin talk her into raising Loki without him at least knowing he'd been born to someone else.

"So…they were just making that up?"

"I suppose so, yes," she said, and she could not, in fact, imagine that they had based their words on any actual facts. The timing of Odin's visits home was close enough, given the story she and he had put together the day after he'd brought her little Loki home. Some tongues may have wagged at the time, but she and Odin had never given anyone any cause to doubt the happiness and stability of their family, Odin was revered following the victory over Jotunheim and his sacrifice of an eye in the effort, and she herself had earned newfound respect due to her management of Asgard in Odin's absence. For every doubt or question she and Odin had an answer, and any wagging tongues had long since fallen silent. Apparently that didn't stop youths from their apparent need to find something to taunt her son with.

"But why?" Loki asked, big steel-blue eyes innocent and hurting. He'd been sheltered more than most boys his age and had not had to deal much with the cruelty children could mete out, and she wasn't sure, but she thought he remained largely unaffected by other boys' tendency to prefer playing with his more outgoing and self-confident older brother. Thor was a natural leader and the other boys and girls naturally followed.

"They wanted to hurt your feelings, or make you angry. I don't really know why. Perhaps they were simply envious. You and Thor have privileges and opportunities and wealth that few others have. You must always remember not to be unkind to others because they lack these things, and others should remember not to be unkind to you because you have them. But when they do not remember this…Loki…you mustn't start fights over a hurtful taunt."

"But it wasn't because…," Loki began, trailing off as he looked away, and clenching the covers hard in his fists. "I couldn't just stand there and let them say those things. About you," he added, his eyes flickering up to hers.

Frigga's shoulders fell with a sigh. It was a nuance, but an important one, and she'd missed it. This had _never_ been about Loki. She'd known it, intuitively, in her initial reaction of utter shock when Loki said _he'd_ been the one to throw the first punch. Her sweet, gentle boy would never strike out physically at someone like that because of an insult to himself. "You were defending me? My brave boy," she said, then leaned forward and embraced him gently, careful of the lingering soreness in his shoulder and torso.

He returned the embrace, but it was weak, and when she drew back she could see the trace of what looked to be embarrassment on his face. She hated that he'd already reached an age where he could be embarrassed by his mother's arms around him. They were growing up so fast, both he and Thor.

"I appreciate that what you did, you did for my honor. But Loki, it lacked wisdom. There were three of them. Older than you. Bigger than you. Stronger than you. More training than you. How did you think it would end?" she asked softly, gently. The last thing she wanted to do now was criticize him, but she didn't want him going around starting fights, either, much less those he couldn't possibly win.

"It doesn't matter," Loki said, stubbornness in his face and voice that was also uncharacteristic of him.

"It doesn't matter?" Frigga echoed, aghast. "Listen to me, my son, you were bleeding inside your belly. If Eir hadn't caught it, it could have killed you. It matters. And today it was fists and boots. Someday it may be swords and maces and axes and spears. Do you understand?"

Loki nodded, but there was still a reluctance in it. Loki may be the gentler, more sensitive of her two boys, but he was still a boy of Asgard.

"You must think before you act. Avoid fighting when possible. Being a good warrior isn't just about skilled fighting. It's knowing _when_ to fight, and when not to. What else might you have done besides hit them?"

"Motherrrr…"

"Enough 'Motherrrr,' I'm serious, Loki. What else might you have done?"

"I couldn't just walk away!" he erupted.

 _Yes, you could have,_ she thought, but there was probably no male on the face of Asgard who would listen to _that_ advice, not in a realm where to be a man quite literally meant to be a warrior. "Perhaps not," she allowed. "But were those your only two options? Hitting boys you could not possibly have stood up against in the end, or walking away?"

Loki frowned, thinking it over. "I could have gone to find Thor? And we could have taken them on together?"

Frigga pursed her lips, holding back something between a laugh and a cry of frustration. "An eleven-year-old and a twelve-year-old against three fourteen-year-olds? No, Loki, that's no better. What did I say to you when you were very young and you wouldn't talk?"

"'Use your words,'" he said. "But I _did_ talk to them. I told them they'd better take back what they said, or else."

"So you tried to threaten the older, bigger, stronger, better-trained boys?"

Loki gave her an irritable look of frustration, that appeared much older than his eleven years, and she knew she'd better wrap this up soon. She didn't doubt he _was_ frustrated, but she knew he had to be tired, too, and she needed to let him get some sleep. "You could have reasoned with them, Loki. You're very clever with your words. You could have used your wits. You could have told them that there was no merit in their ridiculous accusations, and that you refused to justify such baseless and salacious claims by lowering yourself to respond to them. And _then_ you could have walked away, and come to me to address your concerns."

Loki's eyes were wide by the time she finished. "What's 'salacious?'" he asked.

"Indecent. Inappropriate. Rude. And if you were too upset to think of the more clever ways of expressing yourself, you could have just laughed at them and told them they were fools, and then walked out. And come to me. Do you think that might have worked?"

"Maybe," he conceded. She could almost see the gears working in his head. He might be too tired to think it all through tonight, but she knew him, and she knew he'd be thinking it through again tomorrow.

"Loki," she said, putting her hand lightly to his cheek, "I hope you noticed that both of those versions ended the same way. With you coming to me with your concerns. You can _always_ come to me, with absolutely anything. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, Mother."

"Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Mother," he said again, this time with a smile.

"Good," she said, then slipped her arms around him again to hug him. His own grip around her was stronger this time. She ran a hand through his hair, kissed the top of his head, then disentangled herself and stood. "Will you tell me the names of those boys?"

Loki drew his lips inward, between his teeth, as though to physically prevent the answer. "No, Mother," he said a moment later, very quietly. "Please don't ask me to."

Frigga drew in a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. "Are you going to do something like this again?"

"No, Mother."

"All right. Then I won't ask again. But if they give you any more trouble, I expect you to tell me then."

Loki nodded, but Frigga wasn't going to be relying solely on Loki reporting any run-ins. His guards wouldn't be letting him out of their sight, and for added safety, she would even ask Heimdall to keep his eye trained on him for the next few weeks.

She took the little cup of medicine Eir had left and gave it to Loki, then took it back from him once he'd drunk it. "It tastes like honey," he said with a grin, scooting down until he was on his back under the covers, then rolling to his side, facing her.

"Honey in bed. Aren't you lucky to have Eir mixing your medicines, my little one? Sleep well, Loki. I'm going to go speak to your father, and then-"

"No! Please don't tell him, Mother. It's too embarrassing. And it doesn't matter now anyway, right? I'm fine now, and…and everything…I mean it's…"

Frigga smiled and bent down to kiss his head again. The poor thing, he was already tired and the medicine was kicking in fast, and he was blinking heavily and trying to fight it. "You were hurt. He has to know. But I won't make a big issue of it, all right? And there's nothing to be embarrassed about. Please don't worry, little one. Everything will be fine. I won't be gone long, and then I'll come back here and sit with you, all right? Just sleep for now. There's nothing to worry about. Just sleep. Just sleep, Loki." And by the time she fell silent, his breathing had evened out and the medicine had won.

* * *

 _Notes_

 _Thanks so much for your comments and thoughts on the last chapter! Ha, I was a leeetle surprised no one "yelled" at me for putting up another story when I have three unfinished ones! (All very much still in-progress of course.) But I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I hope you enjoyed this one, too. To be honest, it's my personal favorite of the five in this story. It also contains the kernel of the idea for the story that first came to me - that the other kids all know Loki was born on Victory Day (if you're reading my other stories you know a bit more of that background, but it's all derived from the_ Thor _movie), and also know that Odin was away leading a war until that day, and it would be a natural thing for kids to latch onto as something to tease and taunt about. And then the heart of the story, as I first conceived it, was Frigga realizing that Loki didn't start this fight to defend himself, though it hurt him personally too...but to defend her. Once I expanded on the idea, the story gained a second "heart," and that's related to that other main character listed up top._

 _A wee "writing" note: As some of you may know, in each of my stories I try to do a little something different in the POV (mostly just because it's good practice for me). For this story, the challenge was to never use Loki's POV. This is Loki through Frigga's eyes, and later...through Odin's._

 _Remaining chapters -_

 _Ch. 3: "Victory Day approaches." Frigga really doesn't take no for an answer._

 _Ch. 4: "What secrets?"_

 _Ch. 5: "Everyone needs a home."_


	3. Victory Day approaches

_**Echoes of the Frost**_

 **Ch. 3: "Victory Day approaches."**

Frigga sent word through the Einherjar that she needed to speak with Odin, though it was not urgent. Odin, of course, knew that she would not have sent such word to him were it not important, so she was not at all surprised when less than an hour later a light knock sounded at the door, which opened immediately after. He glanced between her and Loki – she sat at the foot of his bed, where his feet did not yet reach – and said nothing. He didn't need to. She saw the question in his eyes, read the concern in his narrowed eye.

She stood, lightly caressed Loki's cheek, kissed his forehead, and went to the door, which Odin opened for her. They went one floor up and into their own chambers through the door a guard opened for them; Frigga took the lead, and Odin followed her into her own study, where he almost never went. The servants were gone for the evening. They were alone.

"What happened?" Odin asked as soon as they were in Frigga's study.

Frigga drew in a quick breath and squeezed her eyes shut. Behind her eyelids she saw Loki as he'd appeared when she first saw his face – swollen lip, red knotted forehead, bruises, scratches – and then she saw that shoeprint on his chest. Tears started to come and Odin's arms were suddenly around hers, his bearded cheek pressed to her face.

When the tears stopped and she was dabbing at her own eyes with a handkerchief just as she had Loki's not so long ago, she told Odin everything that had happened.

"If he ever told you who those boys were that he fought, don't tell me their names."

"He didn't."

"Good. They will grow into men and warriors, and if I ever came across them I would somehow have to treat them fairly. Better to not know their names."

" _I_ would know their names. And I would treat them fairly. What do you think is fair treatment for three fourteen-year-olds who beat an eleven-year-old badly enough to cause kidney damage and internal bleeding?"

"Loki took the first swing, and the second, from what you said. They were foolish to take things so far against -"

"Foolish? _Foolish_? One of them left a _shoeprint_ on him here, Odin," Frigga said, putting her hands to her chest to mark the location. "They could have crushed his ribcage. They could have killed him. They're brutes, thugs, and they deserve-"

"Frigga, calm, calm. Loki is well."

"If you would defend them, you may sleep elsewhere for the foreseeable future, for I do not know who you are."

"I would not dare. They're a disgrace to Asgard. You have spoken to Hergils?"

"I will first thing tomorrow morning, before Loki goes to his lessons, assuming he even feels up to it tomorrow. They're going to have to keep a closer eye on him. And Thor."

"Both of our boys will have to learn to fight their own battles, you know. You can't protect them from everything."

"I know that. But they don't need to be fighting any battles just yet, not at eleven and twelve. And both of them need to learn to apply some wisdom before any battle."

"I don't disagree. They'll learn it in time. We have two fine boys, my love. They'll make mistakes along the way, but they'll learn."

"I don't want any more mistakes like _this._ "

"No," Odin agreed.

"Come, sit. I've been thinking," she said, leaving her husband to walk over to her desk, made of a black wood native to Alfheim, with rich Asgardian cherry set into the top. The style was relatively simple and even austere, which she appreciated, for it reminded her to quickly finish any task she sat down at this desk to complete. It also put an air of formality between her and whoever might sit on the other side of the desk…as Odin Borson All-Father was now. He shifted somewhat uncomfortably in his chair. They couldn't have sat like this, she behind her desk and he sitting opposite her, more than a handful of times in their entire marriage.

"You're always thinking, Frigg. It's one of the many things I admire in you," he said.

"Shush your flattery. I need two things from you."

"If it is possible, they will be yours. What do you seek?" Odin asked, eye slightly narrowed. He could not have failed to notice that she had not said that she "sought," or "asked," but rather that she _needed._

"Victory Day approaches. I need to speak a few words during the Proclamations and Exhortations. I know the schedule has already been set, but I need only a few minutes, less than five."

"Easily done. You're always welcome to speak in the Victory Day celebrations. Or whenever else you wish. You know this."

"Yes, but since I've never done so before on Victory Day, I wanted to let you know of my intentions now."

"All right. Speak to the Protocol Office. They'll put you on the schedule wherever you like. What else?"

"I want you to spend Loki's birthday with him."

"I always spend Loki's birthday with him – almost always. The day _after_ his birthday, of course, I assume you mean."

"Yes, of course. But you only have dinner with him for his birthday. With all of us. I want you to spend the entire day with him. Just the two of you."

Odin's mouth fell open for a second, and the answer she expected came forth. "You know I can't do that. Just as Victory Day is already planned, the day _after_ Victory Day is already planned, and the day after that, and the day after that. Dinner has been set aside on Loki's birthday. If you think it important, Loki and I can have dinner apart from you and Thor."

"No. Not just dinner. The whole day. And I don't want you to spend it here in the city. I want you to take him away somewhere, so it will truly be just the two of you."

"Frigga," he began in an admonishing tone, "you can't-"

"Yes, I can," she interrupted, not even certain what he was going to say, except that it had a negative in it. "I know the importance of Victory Day. I know that you can give Loki little time on that day. And I know that the celebrations and ceremonies of Victory Day mean that you have extra work to deal with the next day. I have never asked this of you before, and I never will again, except for on his twentieth. But I am _insisting_ upon it now, after what happened today. He needs the reassurance of his family, Odin. Of his father."

"I have a meeting with Gullveig that day. I don't even remember what else is on the schedule."

"Gullveig has been king of Vanaheim for two thousand years, and he'll be king for another two thousand to come. Vanaheim is easily reachable by bifrost or portal gate. Your son will turn twelve only once. He has only a few scant years before he'll be a man. And he has never been able to spend his birthday, or even the day after his birthday, with his father. Being the All-Father means your time is precious, in high demand. You know that I understand that. But being the All-Father also means that you _can_ reschedule, when something is important enough. And I am telling you as your wife, and as your queen, and as Loki's mother, that _this_ is important enough."

/

* * *

/

Three weeks later, Asgard's queen stepped up to the spot on the dais where her husband had just stood, and from which her voice would be amplified to the assembled multitudes. Odin was now standing behind her and just to her left; Thor and Loki sat off to her right, and a number of Odin's advisors and most storied warriors sat or stood behind them all. She was dressed in glittering gold; her hair, ears, neck, wrists, fingers, and the broad stiff sash at her waist all liberally adorned with rubies and garnets.

"Honored Asgardians," she began in the public persona voice she'd long ago mastered – warm, confident, commanding but compassionate. A genuine smile along with a surprising flash of embarrassment came out as cheers rose up. She had grown unused to this. "It has been almost twelve years now, since I last stood before you in formal address." It had been her own suggestion. In Odin's absence she had ruled, though always in his name – her fingertips had never touched Gungnir – and not in her own. She'd been nervous initially but the centuries of observing Odin and the preparation as war against Jotunheim began to look inevitable had paid off. It had become more difficult once Thor was on the way, more difficult still once he was born, but by then she had proven herself a capable ruler, respected and beloved, dealing with Asgard, overseeing supply to warriors on Midgard and later Jotunheim, and caring for the heir to the throne (though she'd of course relied heavily on advisors and nursemaids in her various duties). When Odin returned, baby in hand, she'd wanted to be nothing more than mother and wife…and she'd not wanted any Asgardian to have any doubt about who ruled their realm. Odin was the All-Father; Frigga merely supported him and served as needed. So after a short transition period, she ceased her public speeches and focused on her family and the more traditional duties of an Asgardian queen.

"As Asgard has rejoiced to have its king home in triumph for twelve years now, especially on this day, I have also rejoiced with you, to have not only my king home, but, like many of you, my husband home. The Ice War was a trying time for each of us, in our own ways. We fought heroically, we worked the land, we crafted and built, we cared for those left behind, we prepared defenses in case of attack. Our spirit was indomitable." Another cheer went up.

"We missed our loved ones, whether we were battling on a distant realm or waiting anxiously for their return. I am your queen, but I am also a wife and a mother. I missed my husband as much as every other wife, and like every other wife was grateful for the lulls in the battles on Midgard, when my husband came home to me, and then to our first son, and finally to our second." More cheering, for Thor the heir, and for Loki who was born on Victory Day. So the people believed, anyway. As the cheering continued, Frigga looked to Odin, who nodded serenely at her with a sparkle in his eye. She hadn't discussed her remarks with him, but she knew that he now knew exactly why she'd wanted to speak this year after years of staying in the background. She looked then to her right, where Thor was grinning and waving to the crowd, and Loki was grinning and looking up at her. As far as she knew, Loki had never told Thor what happened that day three weeks ago; Thor clearly had no inkling of the purpose in her words. Loki just as clearly knew her purpose exactly. No one would try to say Odin hadn't been home to father him now.

"We celebrated as only Asgard does, ignoring the clocks and filling our glasses to sing the glory of both those lost and those returned. Our poets gave us new works that every Asgardian now knows by heart. Our children live in peace and study the heroism and sacrifice of…"

The speech continued, lasting just over four minutes; the cheers that followed lasted almost that long again. Odin placed an arm on her shoulder and squeezed – about as much public affection as he ever showed – then retook his place at the center of the dais and began his second set of remarks, skillfully interweaving unplanned references to hers.

Loki avoided her for the rest of the day – or at least so it seemed, since she never caught more than a glimpse of him during the festivities – which she thought was strange. When the skylight show was over and the hour grew late, she slipped away to retire for the evening. Victory Day was a two-day affair, with most adults taking advantage of their reduced need for sleep to celebrate all night long and into the next day, some continuing the merriment into the next night as well. Frigga never participated in the extended revelries. She had mixed feelings about them because of Loki, and besides, the day after Victory Day was when they celebrated Loki's birthday.

Her sons were allowed to stay out until midnight this day, watched by the Einherjar, and Odin was still out there, too, so she was alone when the Einherjar opened the door to the palace's private wing and she stepped inside. Except that she was not. She let out a startled gasp when Loki suddenly appeared in front of her; she realized he'd been sitting on the bench just inside the door. He threw his arms around her and she quickly got over her surprise and hugged him tightly back. Neither of them said anything for a long time.

"Have you enjoyed the day?" she asked when Loki finally pulled away.

He nodded.

"I'm glad. Are you going back out?"

He nodded again. "I was just waiting for you. But I'll go find Thor now."

"All right. When you come in, come straight up to see your father. He wants to talk to you about tomorrow. Don't be late. He has to go out again afterward."

"I'll be there," Loki said.

"I love you, precious boy. See you at midnight."

"I love you too, Mother." Loki flashed her a grin and took off past her at a run, bursting out through the door and into the night.

/

* * *

/

"Father?" Frigga heard Loki calling from the entryway of their chambers.

"Out here," she called back. "The atrium." She turned to Odin, who'd removed his cape and armor and now wore a more casual look of black leathers and red and brown cloth for the overnight continuation of celebrations. "Don't tease him too badly. You know he's more sensitive than Thor."

Odin threw her an irritable look from where he sat on the edge of the fountain. She knew he wasn't entirely convinced of tomorrow's plan, but had agreed to the changes in his schedule for her, because she had insisted that Loki needed it. She wished Odin could see for himself what Loki needed from him, but it was Frigga who talked one-on-one with Loki every day while Odin sat on his throne.

"You wanted to see me, Father?" Loki said as he ran into the atrium. His hair was damp and his face was sweaty. The patterned black leather bracers he wore over his wrists looked damp, too. Frigga wondered what he and Thor had been up to outside.

"Yes, it's about tomorrow. I wanted to talk to you about your plans."

Frigga turned away and busied herself with the flowers she'd been tending to while they were waiting for Loki. Odin wanted to make it a surprise for Loki.

"Mother and Thor and I are going to go sailing and have a picnic. And then we'll go to Statuary Hall. And then Hergils is going to give us some training and have a swordfight with us, Thor and I, I mean. And then we're going to go to Central Market and Mother will let me buy anything I want. And then-"

Frigga cleared her throat.

"Mother will let me buy anything I want within reason. And then we'll come up here for dinner and have chicken with cherry sauce and carrots with honey butter sauce and bean sticks with kira seeds and rye bread and apricot sponge pudding."

"I think I know who chose the menu," Odin said.

Frigga smiled, her back still to them. Of everything on that menu, Odin would like the rye bread. But the boys always got to choose their birthday menus.

"They're going to make some chicken without the cherry sauce for you, Father."

"I would be grateful…except I don't think I will be back in time for dinner."

 _And here comes the teasing._ She turned back to them and saw Loki looking crestfallen. "Do you have to go to a meeting?"

"Not exactly. I was thinking I might go away for the day."

"Away?" Loki repeated. He was blinking rapidly, and Frigga was afraid that as tired as he must be, he was probably extra-emotional and might even start crying.

"Odin," she chided, raising an eyebrow.

One corner of his mouth lifted up as he looked her way, then back at Loki. "I was thinking you might go away for the day _with_ me."

"What do you mean?" Loki asked, looking genuinely confused.

"Have you heard of the Rimaldarsons Horse Farm?"

Frigga smiled as Loki shook his head, still looking confused. It was Odin's own idea, added on to hers, and he'd been so hesitant about it when he told her that she'd laughed at his uncertainty about what Loki might like. Their family _did_ do things together, but it was always up to Frigga to plan the outings. Odin was as unused to this as Loki clearly was. She wondered how long it would take before what Odin was suggesting would sink in.

"It's the premiere horse training and breeding establishment on Vanaheim. Probably in all the Nine Realms, but I wouldn't want to let our Asgardian horsemasters hear me say such a thing. I've booked us a private tour there for tomorrow morning, that is, if you would like to go."

Loki rapidly nodded. "I'd love to, Father. Are we meeting Uncle Ve and Aunt Luta?"

"No, it'll be just you and I."

Loki glanced over at her; she gave him a smile. "Mother and Thor aren't coming?"

"No. Just the two of us."

"If you're back in time," Frigga put in, "we'll have your birthday dinner as planned, and if not, then we'll just have it the next night. And we'll reschedule all your other birthday plans for the day after tomorrow, too."

"What do you say, Loki? Rimaldarsons Horse Farm in the morning, and the Vetrima Park Natural History Museum in the afternoon?"

The outdoor museum had been Frigga's idea; Loki had been there twice before, with Thor, the last time over five years ago now, and both boys had loved it. She watched as Loki's smile grew; she knew he hadn't forgotten that museum.

Confusion then returned. "But when are you meeting with King Gullveig?"

"I'm not meeting with him."

"But…why are we going to Vanaheim, then?"

Visiting other realms, when you were the All-Father, protector of the Nine but ruler only of Asgard, was a sensitive matter. Odin almost never did it without first coordinating his plans (in essence gaining permission, though such a word was never used) with the realm's ruler or at least protocol office. In this case, because he _had_ had to postpone a meeting with Gullveig, he'd explained that his son had gone through a difficult time and needed the day with him, and Gullveig, so Odin had told her, had been very understanding and had not only agreed to the change in plans but had instructed a clerk to arrange the private events. Typically, though, if their family travelled to another realm, it was because Odin had official meetings there.

"Because I…I thought it would be…nice for us to do something together, on our own," Odin said, and Frigga breathed a silent sigh of relief that he hadn't said what she'd suddenly feared he might, _"Because your mother said I should."_ "But if you'd rather stay here and-"

"No! Thank you, Father, it's going to be incredible, I can't wait, I won't even be able to sleep tonight!" Loki proclaimed, voice muffled against Odin's chest where he'd thrown himself. Odin meanwhile wrapped his arms loosely around Loki's back and patted him there with one hand. Frigga smiled and shook her head at how awkward he looked doing it. At least he was doing it. He'd become less physically affectionate with the boys as they grew out of their childhood.

"It's late, and you're tired, and you _must_ sleep, because you have a very busy day planned tomorrow. So give your father a kiss goodnight, and don't forget your mother, and then get off to bed." He kissed Odin's cheek then ran over to hug and kiss her; she took the opportunity to give him a discrete sniff. He smelled salty, and she suspected from the marks on his bracers, now that she had a better look at them, that they were ruined. "Bathe before bed," she said.

Loki nodded and started to run from the atrium.

"And don't stay up all night talking to Thor. Straight to your own chambers!" she called after him.

"Yes, Mother!" she heard him shout from somewhere indoors.

/

* * *

 _Notes_

 _Guest (June 22): Just wanted to say I love that idea!_

 _Thanks so much to everyone who dropped in a review, and to story favers and followers and all who are reading. In the next chapter...we're off to Vanaheim!_


	4. What secrets?

**_Echoes of the Frost_**

 **Ch. 4: "What secrets?"**

"I want to go, too."

Odin glanced up from his hot cereal at his eldest boy. Loki had been filling Thor in on the day's plans, and Odin had only been half-listening as he reviewed the day's agenda with his breakfast, per his typical routine. He hadn't really thought about this, but it seemed only natural that Thor would want to join them. And as he considered it now, he again didn't see why Frigga had insisted on this. He did not spend the day alone with Thor on _Thor's_ birthday, even while simply staying here on Asgard. It wasn't right to exclude Thor from something like this, to give Loki something which Thor did not also receive.

He was just about to tell Thor that yes, of course he could join them if he wanted to, when he caught Frigga's narrowed eyes and narrowed lips. Sometimes he thought he acquiesced to her too much in matters involving their sons, but the truth was she spent more time with them than he did, and he had little choice but to cede much of the decision-making to her. Now that the boys were both officially youths on their way to adulthood, that would need to change. They needed to train hard to become warriors – without the other distractions that Loki sometimes gravitated toward – and Thor needed to understand and prepare for his destiny.

Frigga, meanwhile, was filling the silence following Thor's words. "Loki hardly gets to see his father on his birthday because of Victory Day. So this one day this one year is a special day just for Loki, to make up for that. You and I will do something fun today, and then tomorrow we'll do all the things we'd planned to do with Loki today."

"But we can do things on Asgard any day. I want to go to Vanaheim with Father and Loki," Thor said. The boy was bold, Odin thought with a smile. He did not state it as a request, or as a demand, much less as a whining plea – simply as an assumption that if he stated his wish for something he would have it. Although it often seemed to Odin that Frigga was too indulgent with Loki, they were too indulgent with both boys, really. It was difficult to avoid, given who they were, and both of them were still reasonably well-behaved.

"It's all right with me if Thor comes," Loki said.

Odin looked at Frigga and lifted an eyebrow; she gave a minute shake of her head. He turned back to Thor, ready to acquiesce to her one more time. Perhaps she knew best. But he would not allow Thor to be ignored. "Your birthday comes in a couple of months, Son. The two of us will do something then."

"But what about Vanaheim?"

"Not this time, Thor," Odin said a bit sternly. _Bold and stubborn._

"Sorry," Loki said quietly to his brother.

Thor may have been bold and stubborn, Odin thought, but Loki too often lacked backbone. He was still very young, though. They both were. There was plenty of time for them to grow into the Aesir men they needed to be. His gaze fell on Loki and he frowned. He _hoped_ they would both grow into the men they needed to be. He looked then toward Frigga, to see what she thought of his compromise to Thor, but she was busy buttering a roll and gave no sign of her reaction.

/

* * *

/

Their breakfast had been an early one, beginning before Thor arrived, and the sun had not even fully revealed itself from the horizon when Odin left with Loki, who kissed his mother and hugged his brother on the way out. "I promise I'll tell you everything," he heard Loki, lagging behind, tell Thor.

The two of them went down the many stairs in silence – it didn't particularly bother Odin, for he wasn't particularly talkative, though he did think perhaps he should be saying _something_ to Loki. Frigga, he knew, would want him to.

Outside, horses were waiting. Loki was quite competent on a horse, perhaps even more so than Thor. A servant from the stables was on hand to give him a boost, but Loki was nimble and worked his fingers around bits of the tack to hoist himself up and scramble up into the saddle. When his feet were securely in the stirrups that had been adjusted to his height, Odin led them off to the observatory.

"Did any of _our_ horses come from Rimaldarsons Horse Farm?" Loki asked once they were trotting down the bridge side-by-side.

"Yes, two of them."

"Which ones?"

Odin told him about the horses and their purchase.

"What makes their horses better?"

"Mind your language, Loki. We won't refer to them as 'better' there, or in front of others here. Exceptional, outstanding, fine horses, but not 'better.'"

"I understand, Father," Loki said with the serious nod of acknowledgement and obedience Odin was looking for. "What makes them so exceptional?"

"Several things. The horses are bred from only the finest stock, the breeders and handlers study and apprentice for hundreds of years before they're allowed to do anything on their own besides cleaning the stables…and then there are the family secrets," Odin said, lowering his voice for effect.

"What secrets?" Loki asked, letting the old white stallion direct himself down the bridge, all his attention now on Odin.

"If I knew them, they wouldn't be secrets," Odin said, holding back his smile. He would let Loki ask and seek out the answers; his youngest was full of curiosity and would no doubt do so.

"Can we ask Heimdall?" he asked, glancing toward the observatory they steadily approached.

"Certainly not. That would be highly inappropriate, Loki. Heimdall uses his skills to protect Asgard, not to steal secrets from private undertakings."

Loki was silent for a moment. "You could think of it as protecting Asgard. Protecting our horse breeding farms is important."

"Do not twist my words. You know what I meant. It would be dishonorable no matter how it was justified, and as Aesir, we do not do such things," Odin said, regarding Loki with a frown. The boy's cleverness was a double-edged sword, to be sure. There was a mischievous side to him. All children had it, of course; Thor got into his fair share of trouble, and half the time Odin and Frigga weren't quite certain which of the two had led them both into their wayward actions. There was just something _different_ about Loki. Or so it seemed, at times. And sometimes Odin couldn't help but wonder if there was something in this child that was still innately Jotun, something in his blood that put a different glint in his eye, gave more purpose to his words, put better skill into his attempts to deceive than his Aesir-blooded brother had. There was no way to be certain. And there was really nothing Odin could do about it either way. Or rather, there was nothing he was _willing_ to do. Whoever Loki was, whoever he would become, a decision had been made twelve years ago to bring him into this family, and it was far too late to turn back from that. Decisions had been made; consequences would be accepted and dealt with if the need arose. And in the meantime, he would treat Loki no differently from Thor and expect no less or more from him. Odin had not known _either_ child when he'd returned from the Ice War. He'd gotten to know them both at the same time. He would treat them the _same_.

He looked over at Loki, whose eyes had drifted away – Odin could almost see the gears turning in his head – and the frown remained. _This_ was not treating them the same. He had not taken Thor anywhere on his own, not deliberately, at least. On a few occasions he had done so, when Loki took ill with some early childhood sickness he should have had years earlier as Thor had, and Frigga stayed home to be with him. He would have done the same, though, continuing on with Loki, had it been Thor who'd fallen ill.

"Can we ask the Rimaldarsons?"

"Of course. Asking questions shows that you're interested. It's a sign of respect. Though your questions must also be respectful."

Loki nodded thoughtfully. "So I shouldn't just ask them what their family secrets are?"

"That would not be the wisest thing to ask, no," Odin said, a smile now playing at his lips. Thor would ask that. His oldest tended to say whatever was on his mind. He would say it so guilelessly, and with those brilliant blue eyes and that infectious youthful enthusiasm he would so charm his audience that they wouldn't mind the bluntness. Loki was different. Quieter, more thoughtful. He tended to ponder what he wished to say before saying it.

Loki was in fact quiet for the rest of the ride to the observatory. Odin glanced over at him from time to time; Frigga, he knew from the lecture he'd endured last night, did expect him to use this time to talk with Loki. But he often didn't know what to _say_ to Loki, and Loki himself didn't make it any easier with his quiet and shy demeanor. Thor always had something to say, which gave Odin something to respond to. Loki seemed to wait for something to be said to him. "Did you enjoy the festivities yesterday?" he finally asked as they came to a halt outside the observatory.

"Yes, Father," Loki said politely, giving him a smile.

Odin nodded once. "Good," he said, and then, when it seemed Loki had nothing else to say and neither did he, he dismounted and came around to Loki to give him a hand down.

"Good morning, Your Majesty, Loki," Heimdall said, waiting for them at the entrance.

"Good morning, Heimdall," Odin said, echoed quickly by Loki. "How does the cosmos fare this day?"

"Very well, my king. And especially well at Rimaldarsons Horse Farm," dropping his voice to a whisper and leaning down toward Loki.

"Really?" Loki asked with a big grin.

"Really," Heimdall confirmed.

"We'd best be going, then, Son," Odin said, giving Heimdall's arm a squeeze as they passed.

/

* * *

/

It was a few hours later in the day in the part of Vanaheim Heimdall sent them to, and the horse farm would normally already be open when they arrived, but today it was closed to the public for the visit from Odin and his younger son. Loki, in his own more reserved way, was clearly enjoying himself immensely. Odin found himself enjoying the tour as well; he took his own pleasure in seeing Loki's, but also found Loki rather fascinating to observe. It took him a while to realize that this was because Loki and Thor were almost always at each other's sides, and he'd never had much opportunity to see how Loki behaved on his own. He was surprised at how much Loki said, how many questions he asked; usually, Thor did most of the talking, with Loki often simply echoing whatever Thor had said. He had thought Loki shy; now he wondered if he had overestimated the boy's shyness. His cleverness he had not overestimated. Loki asked question after question, many of them impressively insightful for a barely twelve-year-old boy, and many of them intended to elicit those family secrets he was so curious about.

"Father…," Loki began as they were about to leave.

"Yes?"

"Could we go see that pony again? The one that-"

"I know the one. Yes, run along. I think you know your way back to her."

"Thank you, Father!" Loki said with a sunny smile, nodding politely at their tour guide, then taking off racing through the pasture.

Of course Odin knew the one. The yearling was a promising filly, with a rich reddish-brown coat, black mane and tail, and a small perfectly symmetrical white diamond on her forehead. She was on the young side, her legs still noticeably long in proportion to her body. Loki had received a lesson on grooming and practiced on her; something had really drawn the boy to this young horse and before long Odin overheard him whispering words of childish affection into her ears. Loki had been reluctant to leave and distracted for a while afterward.

Odin followed at a more leisurely pace and found Loki again brushing the yearling and having a quiet one-way conversation with her. "Don't worry. They'll take very good care of you here, and then a really nice family will come and take you with them, and you'll have a new home and they'll take good care of you, too, and they'll love you so much," Loki said. Odin stepped away to let Loki continue his goodbyes with his four-legged friend.

/

* * *

/

"…and we saw Fandral and Shaba and _they_ were jumping in and getting all wet, so we jumped, too, and we were all splashing each other, and there was this _gigantic_ frog on a lilypad and none of us saw it because it was the exact same shade of green as the lilypad and it _jumped_ toward Fandral and Fandral screamed because the frog scared him and he fell back down and it jumped toward Shaba and she was screaming and then Thor tried to grab it and he fell face-first into the water and he got back up and he was chasing the frog around and the frog kept jumping and he knocked _me_ over and then Fandral was trying to catch it, too, but he and Thor were splashing around so much and it just kept jumping and I was trying to sneak up on it and catch it, and Shaba was laughing then, I mean, she wasn't screaming anymore, but I guess her mother heard her screaming before and she came to get her and she started scolding us but then she saw me and Thor, and she just took Shaba away and I think Shaba felt bad because we got in trouble because of her, but not really. But don't worry, Father, nobody got hurt. Not even the frog. When we tried to find it again after Shaba left, it was gone. I guess it got scared and hopped away."

"I'm sure it did," Odin said, trying to piece together the thread of Loki's story. He'd been going on so long, nonstop, stories of random things that had caught his attention, a child's chatter, something Odin wasn't used to hearing for such extended periods of time and least of all from Loki, that Odin found himself instead thinking of the agenda items for the meeting with Gullveig he'd postponed to spend this day with Loki.

"Oh! Look!" Loki said excitedly, darting away to a storefront window. They were walking alongside a street that had grown fairly busy in the late afternoon after their visit to the Vetrima Park Natural History Museum, and Odin felt a flicker of worry every time Loki left his side. Six Einherjar and one palace clerk were here nearby as well, having departed before Odin and Loki, and Odin himself was certainly capable of defending his son from any attack, but still he worried.

A few minutes later they were on their way again, toward a park with a large open area that had already been cordoned off, designated as the spot from which the Asgardian party would return. Something brushed Odin's hand, and he looked down to see Loki's slipping into his. It made Odin smile. His boys didn't take his hands much anymore, and he knew it wouldn't be long before that stage of their lives came to an end entirely. It felt natural still, in this moment. It felt pleasant. He looked down at Loki, now chattering on about the brightly-colored artistic boxes they'd looked at through the window. Frigga was right. He could meet with Gullveig any time; there was no rush needed between their two peaceful realms. There was, however, a rush with Loki. The days were speeding by. His infancy had passed in a heartbeat, his childhood in an inhale, his youth would pass in an exhale, and there would be no going back to revisit these days. If they were missed, they would be missed forever.

"Perhaps we should get one for your mother," Odin said when Loki finally took a breath.

"Oh, we should! But the shop was closed already."

"Yes, it was, wasn't it? Hmmmm. I think I have an idea."

"What is it, Father?" Loki said, his eyes pinned on Odin's as they kept walking, his face open with curiosity.

"If you aren't in too much of a hurry to go back…we could spend the night and return to that shop first thing in the morning."

Loki's eyes grew as big as saucers. "Spend the night? Here, on Vanaheim?"

"Yes," Odin said patiently, stopping because Loki had stopped.

"Just us?"

"Yes, just us."

"Really? I would love to! I'm not in any hurry to go back. We can stay here as long as we need to. I mean, I _do_ want to go back, of course, and I want to tell Mother and Thor about everything we did today…but it can wait until tomorrow," Loki said, putting on quite the intended show of maturity, finishing with a serious tone of voice, while he bounced on his heels.

"Then it will wait until tomorrow," Odin said, calling over the protocol clerk accompanying their small trailing entourage.

/

* * *

 _Sorry for the delay releasing this chapter - internet woes, as some of you have heard me complain about ad nauseum. There's one more chapter to go in this story, and my intent (barring internet woes!) is to put it up next weekend. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this one. I'm curious what you think of Odin...you know I try to write him with complexity, and there's a lot of room for that with this being all his POV. In the next chapter, Loki's special post-birthday day-with-dad continues._

 _Guest responses - "Guest" June 29, I hope it was everything *you* wished for. ;-) How's Odin doing so far?; "fourdevils", thanks, I appreciate it! Really every single bit of the family relationships in my child/teen Loki-Thor stories is informed by the flashback scene in "Thor" - that's a normal family moment, dad telling an exciting story, kids eating it up, everybody looking happy and comfortable with each other, kids eagerly clasping hands with dad. I adore your description of Loki in this story, because yes, that's precisely as I see him._


	5. Everyone needs a home

_**Echoes of the Frost**_

 **Ch. 5: "Everyone needs a home."**

In short order, while Odin shared dinner with his son in a private dining chamber in the finest restaurant in town, all the arrangements were made. King Gullveig's agreement to their extended stay was secured, morning meetings were rescheduled, Frigga was informed, nightclothes and fresh day clothes and other necessary items for tomorrow were provided, accommodation was arranged and inspected for safety by additional Einherjar.

On the ceiling where they dined was projected a three-dimensional illusion of the diner's choice; Loki spent the first ten minutes at the table flipping through the options and getting up and looking at them from different angles. "Choose one and settle down," Odin finally said, and Loki quickly did so. The boy _did_ have more self-control than Thor, usually. But Odin could not much fault a young boy for his energy. Sitting still did not come naturally to Thor, and had not come naturally to him either at this age and for a long time after.

"How does it work, Father?" Loki asked, staring up at the orange-flowered vines blowing in the nonexistent wind above them as soup bowls were set before them.

"Manipulation of light and other forms of energy. You'd have to ask the creator to know more precisely."

Loki nodded. "Can we?"

Odin laughed. He should have expected that. "Perhaps someday you can track down whoever designed it."

"Mother could do it herself," Loki announced, voice full of pride.

"Yes, I'm sure she could."

"Do you think she would, if I asked her? For my chambers?"

"You can ask her when we return. Eat your soup before it gets cold."

"Yes, Father."

/

* * *

/

Loki was full of wide-eyed curiosity, yet well-behaved, as they walked the lush lamp-lit grounds of the inn to their own cottage. "Cottage" of course was a quaint word for it; the protocol clerk had sought out accommodation befitting Asgard's king, or as close as she could come to it in this town, several hours' ride from the capital. The property aimed for, and thus far seemed to achieve, rural luxury. The whole experience, restaurants and inns, was an unusual one for Loki. The boys did not often visit the other realms, and though they'd been to Vanaheim most of all, if they stayed overnight it was usually with Odin's younger brother, their Uncle Ve.

The proprietor and one of the Einherjar led them through a door and into a spacious comfortable living chamber that Odin doubted they would get any use of given the hour, and a few minutes later departed, leaving Odin and Loki alone.

"Shall we go look around?"

Loki gave an enthusiastic nod, though Odin thought he had to be getting tired; it had been a long and busy day. They found first an outdoor living area with a soaking pool, a firepit, an expansive grassy lawn, and a garden that stretched as far back as they could see. Next they came to what was for an inn an enormous bedchamber with its own sitting area and large bathchamber.

Loki darted over to the bed, atop which Odin's nightclothes had been laid. "Where are my things? Didn't Mother send me something to wear, too?"

"Of course she did. We haven't seen everything yet. This cottage has two more bedchambers. You can choose whichever one you want."

"Oh," Loki said, looking down at the bed.

"You prefer this one? You can have it if you like. As long as the other chambers don't have only small beds."

"No. It's not that. It's just…well, I thought we would be staying in the same bedchamber."

Odin watched Loki, who was tracing a finger along the corded seam of the bedspread and had not yet looked up again. He was reminded of a story Frigg had told him, from the boys' first visit to Vanaheim, most of which they'd spent with their mother at Ve's home. Loki was three; Thor, he thought, had already turned four. Thor had run about with abandon and generally made himself a gregarious nuisance, but Loki had for no apparent reason been nervous and held back, sticking close to Frigga. On their first night there, which Odin had spent in official accommodation in the capital, Frigga had woken to screams of such terror she'd thought her children were either being stolen or murdered. She'd torn into their room to find a bleary-eyed Thor trying to comfort Loki and Loki inconsolable. All because of a tree visible through the window, apparently. "Aren't you a little old to be frightened of a new place?"

"I'm not afraid," he said with a quick shake of his head, looking up now. "I just thought…when I was little, and you were gone somewhere and you took Thor, I stayed with Mother. And we would talk. She would tell me stories. And I thought this was kind of like that." He looked around the room again, then shrugged. "I'll go find my room."

Odin watched him go, deep in thought. Loki was _twelve_. Closer to man than infant. It was a childish thing, was it not, to want to sleep in the bed with one's parents? The last time he'd shared a bed with Loki – with either of his sons – was when Loki was about five and Frigga had insisted. It hadn't gone well. Loki had slept between them, startled Odin awake with his restless sleep, and nearly gotten himself seriously hurt for it. Ever since the Ice War, Odin did not respond well to being unexpectedly and suddenly woken.

But on the other hand… _"You have to talk to him, Odin. Make the effort. Don't just let him live in his world while you live in yours."_ Odin wasn't sure what "world" Loki lived in, but he certainly hoped it wasn't a different one from his own.

They could have gone back to Asgard. Heimdall could simply have brought them right back to the bifrost, and they could have ridden back to the palace, spent the night, then come back to Vanaheim in the morning. Odin had elected to remain here because he knew if they _did_ go back to Asgard, they wouldn't have returned; he would be surrounded with his duties and all the people and things that would remind him of them…that would remind him of the frivolousness of this time he was spending here.

They _didn't_ go back to Asgard, because Loki was so clearly enjoying himself. And because so was Odin, more than he'd expected. And what was a few hours' delay?

So they were here, together, and if this day was meant to be for Loki to spend time with him, time Frigga believed he needed…

There was that, however. It still bothered him, this idea that Loki _needed_ something and therefore must receive it, when Thor didn't need it, and didn't receive it. Would this be the only time Loki's feelings were hurt, or he became angry, or got into a fight? This was part of growing up. And learning to handle such situations appropriately was part of growing strong. He could not cancel meetings with fellow kings because Loki's feelings were hurt.

The meetings were already canceled, though, and here they were.

/

* * *

/

Odin found Loki in another room further down the corridor. "Let's go outside for a little while."

"All right," Loki said with nod and a smile that seemed quite grown up. "Can we get in the bath?" he asked when they reached the patio behind the cottage.

"No, it's too late. But you'd better get in the regular bath when we go back in. You still smell of horse."

Loki laughed.

He set them off into the lawn and then the garden, expecting the entire time that any moment Loki would take off at a run to explore on his own, but the boy never left his side. It made Odin smile, even if part of him thought Loki _should_ take off to explore on his own.

"The nightwhistler has begun his serenade. Time to go back," he said another twenty minutes later.

"The nightwhistler?"

"Don't you hear it?"

"That one?" Loki asked several seconds later after another repetition of the high-pitched warbling "twee-oh, twee-ohhhhhh twee-twee-tweeeee."

Odin nodded, and told Loki about the tiny yellow-breasted bird that lived in the upper branches of the oak trees here as they made their way back inside the cottage. "This way," he directed.

When they reached Odin's chambers, Loki stared for a moment, then turned around and grinned. "This is _perfect_!"

Odin chuckled. "We'll see what you think in the morning. Your mother tells me I sometimes snore."

"That's all right. I won't mind," he said, running over to the bed on the right, where his nightclothes now lay. The inn's workers had moved one of the other smaller beds into the room, which was large enough that both beds fit without feeling crowded. It was a special occasion. It would make Frigga happy. It would make Loki happy. And Odin, as he'd realized – or rather, remembered – today, really did enjoy seeing Loki happy.

Odin got changed while Loki bathed – Odin would bathe in the morning – and by the time Loki came out wrapped in a towel over his nightclothes, Odin was already settled in bed, mentally reviewing his schedule for the next day, as he did every night in bed.

"Do I still smell like horse?" Loki asked with a grin as he came up beside Odin.

He leaned forward and sniffed. "You smell like honey."

He laughed. "That's because the soap has honey in it."

"I hope it didn't leave you sticky."

"It didn't," he said, still laughing, but then he abruptly fell silent. "Do you think somebody nice will buy that pony?"

"Probably so," he answered. That pony would cost enough that anyone who bought her and _wasn't_ nice to her would be quite the fool.

Loki draped his towel over the leather bench at the foot of the other bed and climbed in.

"Good night, Loki."

"Good night, Father."

Odin brushed two fingers over the little console on the bedside table and the lights went out.

"Father?"

"Yes?"

"Will you tell me a story?"

Odin thought back to the storybooks he and Frigg used to read the boys when they were still young children. It was a strange request from a twelve-year-old. "I don't believe I remember any of your old stories," he finally said. It wasn't quite the truth – some of them were etched into his brain for life, whether he wanted them there or not – but neither could he quite bring himself to dust off _Purple Serpent_ from Loki's early childhood and tell it here tonight.

"Not one of those. One of _your_ stories. Maybe…something you did with your brothers."

 _Ah,_ Odin thought with a nod in the dark. He supposed he could do that. He was several years older than Villi and Ve, though, so it took him a moment to think of a story to tell, and one that was appropriate to bedtime. "Very well. A short one. Did I ever tell about the time Villi went missing, when he was seven?"

"No," Loki said, and even in the darkness Odin could make out the widening of his eyes. "What happened to him?"

"Well, not so long ago, it was an exceptionally hot day on Asgard…"

/

* * *

/

"Good morning, Father."

"Good morning, Son," Odin said, looking up in surprise. He hadn't heard Loki wake. He supposed he'd expected a yawn or some movement.

"You have a lot of work?"

He looked down at his lap, covered in documents. He was in a large soft chair between Loki's bed and the wall. He'd woken early as was his custom, and while the cottage actually had an office, he'd decided to set up here instead. He hadn't seen either of his boys sound asleep in years. "I always have work. Better to do things now than put them off until later. And since you're awake…"

"I'm up!" Loki proclaimed, throwing back the covers and bounding out of bed.

/

* * *

/

"But even though the fog was so thick, you could still see the lights on the other side of the river?"

"Exactly," Odin answered, sipping at his juice. They were taking breakfast served in their own cottage, ready to leave it and pick out that gift for Frigga once they'd eaten. "If we hadn't…well, I'm sure we would have survived, but we would've been wandering around lost and hungry for much longer."

"But then you still had to forge the river, right?"

"Yes. And it wasn't easy. It took all of our ingenuity, all of our strength," he said, explaining how he and his brothers and friends had fashioned ropes and worked together to cross a raging river that had flooded its banks. "Then we kept our eyes fixed on our goal…and we made it there. Freezing and looking like drowned rats, but we made it."

Loki laughed, slathered another muffin with enough apricot jam for four muffins, then set it down without taking a bite. A funny look came over his face as he fixed his gaze on Odin's eye. Or more precisely, his eye and the gold covering where the other one used to be. Odin had seen that look before. It had precipitated _the talk_ , which Frigga had thankfully rescued him from. More uncomfortable questions were coming, he suspected.

"Does it affect your vision?"

Odin's eyebrow went up. It wasn't the type of question he'd expected. "I suppose it does. Not as much as it used to. In the beginning it was quite an adjustment."

"How so?"

He thought back. It was twelve years ago now, and while it had felt incredibly strange at first, he'd long since grown accustomed to having only one eye. "It restricted my field of vision. I could no longer simply look to my right; I had to _turn_ to my right. It was disconcerting."

Loki pressed his hand over his right eye; Odin watched his left eye look right, this his head turn around far to the right, then back and forth several times. "Weren't you afraid that someone would sneak up on your right and you wouldn't see him?"

"I _was_ somewhat…concerned. That I would be caught off guard. But the greater challenge was that it threw off my depth perception."

"What's that?" Loki asked, hand still over his eye.

"The ability to determine how far away something is. Things look…flatter. As though they're at the same depth. A bit of a problem when a Frost Giant grows an ice dagger and a second later aims it at your head and you misjudge its distance. Thankfully in time my vision adjusted."

Loki's eyes – his uncovered eye at least – went wide as Odin spoke. "Will you show me?"

"All right," Odin said with a chuckle. He picked up his spoon and held it out; watching him, Loki did the same. He thrust it forward, across the table and straight toward Loki's nose; Loki flinched back and swiped his spoon in front of his face but too close to it, missing Odin's spoon entirely. "Try again." Loki didn't flinch this time, but he still swiped too close.

"I understand what you mean. Your spoon sort of looks like it's in the same place as your hand, and I know it's not, but I'm not sure exactly where it is. How close it is."

They tried it a few more times, Loki managing to knock Odin's spoon off course twice, but it was luck rather than purposeful. Odin soon went back to his juice and a few last bites of poached egg, while Loki, who had apparently forgotten his jam-drenched muffin, turned his own spoon around and moved it toward and away from his nose at varying speeds, all the while keeping his right eye covered.

 _Did it hurt? Did it bleed a lot? Did you see it happening right up until your eye was ruined? What does it look like now?_ He wasn't sure if Loki remembered the one accidental look he'd gotten at his eye socket when he was much younger. But these were the questions he'd expected to be asked, at some point. That, and _How did it happen?_ They had never really asked, neither Loki nor Thor. Once, when they were very young, when they had taken note that other fathers, other men, did not wear a covering of gold metal over one eye. Even then, Loki had asked, and Thor had confidently announced that their father looked like that because he was king. _"Your father's eye was hurt fighting in the Ice War,"_ Frigga had corrected them. They'd never pressed for details.

Odin was glad. Loki's _other_ father had taken his eye. And had Laufey not made the decision he did, to cast out his undersized son, Loki would have been raised to despise Asgard, to despise _him_ , to despise Thor. War, perhaps, would have come again, pitting Thor and Loki squarely against one another, instead of them being the brothers and best friends they were now. Raised on Asgard, Loki's cleverness and wit would be honed and shaped, all the other necessary skills alongside it, and he would be an asset to Asgard and to Thor, instead of an enemy. A good brother. A good son.

"That's why they put blinders on horses sometimes, isn't it?"

Odin took a deep breath and focused back on his younger son, who now had both hands up, shielding his vision from both sides. "To limit their field of vision so they stay focused on what's before them, yes. But you can't mimic that. Your eyes aren't positioned like a horse's."

Loki's hands formed circles and slid further back to the sides of his face, laughing in what was really closer to a giggle. Then he sat back and sighed.

"Is something wrong?"

He shrugged. "I feel bad for that pony. Did you hear what they said, her keepers? That she doesn't have her mother or father anymore? I think she must be sad and lonely."

"I'm sure she isn't. There are plenty of other horses around."

"Not her own age. And not her family."

"Family can be what you want it to be. It doesn't have to be who you're born to."

"Maybe not," Loki said with a frown. "But the Rimaldarsons Horse Farm isn't a home. It's a place where horses wait and hope to _have_ a home. Like…like they're staying at an inn for years and years and years, with other horses staying there, too. But most of them are grown, and I guess it's probably easier for them. Everyone needs a home. Even a pony."

Odin watched as Loki started essentially playing with his food, mashing down the edges of his muffin with his fork, then further mashing that down into the plate. Dear Frigga would surely know some kind, reassuring thing to say to Loki; Odin knew he lacked this particular skill of hers, to always know the right thing to say to the boys, and in particular to Loki, whom she called "sensitive." Odin did not know what to do in particular with "sensitive." It wasn't a word often applied to himself. He wished Loki weren't quite so "sensitive," and he hoped it was something he'd soon grow out of. On the other hand…well. Perhaps there was no other hand. But regardless, Odin cherished his inquisitive "sensitive" raven-haired little boy, and cherished this time they'd spent together. He hoped it had meant something to Loki as well, that his son felt no more doubt in him as his father, that the words those boys had spoken were dismissed and forgotten. Loki would choose a decorative box for Frigga this morning. Odin would have to choose something for her as well. She deserved it. And he was in a generous mood.

"I'll be right back," Odin said, rising. When he returned a few minutes later, Loki hadn't shown any further interest in actually eating his muffin, so Odin announced that they were leaving. Loki put his palm to his eye and got up to join him.

Loki wasn't what Odin had wanted, what he'd intended in those first few years. But that was all right. Time had passed, and even in just these twelve years it was clear what a foolhardy idea that had been. Time had changed him. Made this boy trying to learn to gauge with one eye the distance of his spoon and worrying over the fate of a horse he'd only seen for a little while yesterday truly _his_. Not just a suffering child to be helped, to one day return the favor.

Laufey had thrown this child out like refuse. What a foolish, foolish creature Laufey was.

/

* * *

/

Odin stood back and watched as Loki approached the mahogany filly at what seemed approximately one step per minute. Loosely tied around her neck was a dark green bow. Tankran Rimaldarson waited off to the side, barely keeping his excitement in check.

Loki turned around just as slowly as he'd moved toward the horse. "Has…has someone bought her, Father?"

"It appears so," Odin answered, amused by Loki's reaction.

"Who was it?" he asked, eyes sliding over toward Tankran and back again.

"Actually… _I_ bought her."

Loki's eyes got wider and his breathing grew heavier. "You did?"

Odin pressed his lips together. _Can he really not believe it's for him?_ "I did." Part of him wished to see just how long it would take before Loki finally worked up the nerve, or whatever exactly it was, to ask if it was for him, but the larger part of him just wanted to see the look on his son's face when he knew for certain it was. "Happy birthday, my son. I thought perhaps you could be the one to give this pony her home."

Loki's whole face was transformed by joy as he rushed forward and threw his arms around his father, and Odin chuckled quietly while Loki gushed his thank you's.

There were conditions, of course. If Loki wanted to bring this yearling home as his own, he would learn from the stablehands and shoulder much of the responsibility for taking care of her, and, as she grew, for training her. He could not make Asgard her home, then ignore her when he grew bored or found some other interest.

"I'll never abandon her, Father, I swear it. I won't let you down. And I won't let her down. Oh, thank you so much!" Loki said, wrapping his arms around Odin again, then running over to the filly and wrapping his arms around her neck.

Thor would be envious. Odin knew he would have to figure something out there, and fairly quickly. But not just yet.

Loki came running back. "Father, can I name her?"

"She's yours. You can name her whatever you like."

Loki bit his lip and ran back to the filly, where he appeared to be "discussing" her name with her.

Less than an hour later but far behind the initial schedule for the day, all the formalities had been taken care of and they left the Rimaldarsons Horse Farm. In Odin's pocket was a small package holding a bracelet, under Loki's left arm was a larger package holding a shimmering rectangular blue and green glass box, and in his right hand was a gold-threaded rope, by which he led the newly-named Lifhilda.

What a foolish, foolish creature Laufey was.

 _The end...for now._

* * *

 _Well, obviously things didn't stay quite like this when Odin and Loki got home. You got a bit of a hint of that early on in the chapter; Odin knew they wouldn't. But he enjoyed this day almost as much as Loki. I hope_ you _enjoyed it too. Please consider dropping your thoughts in the review box below!_

 _BTW, if you happen to get the urge to read my stories in age-order,_ Magic & Mead _is next. For reverse age order,_ Moving to Alfheim _comes before this._

 _Story connections and probably more than you want to know of behind-the-scenes: So, those of you who hoped Loki would get to have that pony...yep. Lifhilda makes an appearance in the not-yet-released_ Thrymskvida _story, and she's mentioned in a couple of chapters in_ Beneath _, including the flashback chapter titled "Knives," for those of you reading that. I found a picture of a pony that looks pretty much as I was picturing Lifhilda; I'll try to put it up on my Twitter soon ( ninepen)._ _ _This story (ch. 1-4) was written for a long time and one day I just decided since I was almost done with the story I would just take the day or two necessary to write the ending, and then that's when I started releasing it._ The eyepatch thing, and Loki trying to understand how it affects his father's vision, came to me a long time ago and I knew I'd use it in this story. And the ultimate idea weirdly enough was inspired by an interview I've never forgotten, from a couple decades ago with the talented actor who played Patch/Steve on _Days of Our Lives _, him talking about how difficult his knifefight scene was because he had to wear a patch and it badly threw off his depth perception. The bow thing and Loki's reluctance to let himself believe it was really for him - that's actually my story. Though it wasn't a pony. Purple Serpent makes an appearance in another not-yet-released and unfinished story,_ Any Other Child _; it was Loki's favorite book when he was in the 2-3 age range, and he had the stuffed animal to match. Purple Serpent, in case you were wondering (and in case I never actually write all of_ Any Other Child _), is a scary snake who turns out to be a friendly snake - the good guy. The tree-in-the-window incident is also from_ Any Other Child _. Loki slept in between Mom and Dad the night after he nearly drowned - if you've read a certain couple of my other stories,_ Beneath _in particular, you know what happened there._


End file.
